How the Type of Vents You Have Affect Airflow

Good airflow is essential to an efficient HVAC system. Airflow is affected by a number of things, from possible leaks in your ductwork to how often you replace your filter and other factors. One possibility that tends to get overlooked is vent types. The kind of vents you have impact how air flows through your home. Here's what you need to know about vent types and airflow.

Vent Designs

Most vents look similar. They're square or rectangular, with horizontal slats. However, there are also decorative vents, with patterns and designs. The problem with these vent types is that they're designed for aesthetics, not functionality.

Your home's airflow depends on your vents being relatively unobstructed. As a rule, an effective vent should be at least 75% open space. The slats are there to direct the air. Decorative patterns are not.

Patterns mainly get in the way of the air as it flows into your home. If your system was designed specifically for decorative air vents, they'll likely be OK. However, if you're replacing your existing vents with decorative ones, be careful and keep functionality in mind.

Vent Materials

Some vents are made of alternate materials, such as wood or plastic, to fit with your home decor. Be careful of these vent types, since wood and plastic aren't as sturdy as metal. To make them strong enough to replace metal vents, they need to be significantly thicker — especially for floor vents that get walked on. That thickness often means less open space on your vent, which restricts your airflow. Stick to metal vents.

They also make magnetic vent types, so you can close the vents in little-used rooms and create a seal, so air can't leak out. This is a bad idea. Even if you don't use a room often, keep the vents open. Closing a vent increases air pressure throughout the rest of your home. The added stress wastes energy and leads to air leaks.

To learn more about vent types and other factors that affect your home's airflow, contact us at Air Assurance. We provide quality HVAC solutions to Broken Arrow homeowners.

Is There Enough Ventilation in Your Attic?

Homeowners seldom understand the importance of attic ventilation. Attic ventilation has to do with that metal contraption on your roof and those vents underneath the soffits on the eaves. Perhaps you've never really been sure how attic ventilation works or why you should care. First, attic ventilation has a a big effect on your utility bill. Second, it can also help prevent roof damage. Let's have a look at how this happens. 

Why You Need Attic Ventilation

It may not make much sense at first glance, but air should flow freely through your attic to let out excess heat. This heat builds up in summer as warm air rises to the ceiling and migrates into the attic while you're cooling your home. By allowing fresh air to flow through the intake vents located at the lowest level of the eaves, it pushes warm air up through the exhaust vents at the peak of the roof. 

Removing warm air in the winter is also helpful in preventing ice dams. These form on the edge of the roof when the warm air in the attic melts snow and ice on the roof during the daytime and the moisture freezes overnight along the edge. Ice dams can damage the roof over time. 

Exhaust Vents

Exhaust vents are usually one of two kinds: ridge vents, which are elongated and run the length of the ridge at the peak of the roof, or static vents, which stand up from the roof line and have covers to keep out precipitation. Turbine vents are a type of static vent that operates as wind blows on an enclosed fan. A light breeze rotates the blades, which sucks out heat from the attic.

Powered exhaust vents, as opposed to the passive vents described above, also boost attic ventilation. These electric- or solar-powered fans turn on when the attic temperature reaches a certain level, and they run until the temperature drops. These effectively pull out heat, but they may also pull out air conditioning through cracks.

To learn more about attic ventilation, contact Air Assurance, serving the Broken Arrow area.

Best Winter Ventilation Practices

Ventilation in winter, or anytime for that matter. can be tricky. You need to increase fresh air while you're exhausting stale air, but installing ventilation systems to solve the problem can carry some risks.

While the topic of winter ventilation can be complicated, here are a few pointers to get you started.

Types of Ventilation

First of all, it's important to understand the types of ventilation systems:

1. Exhaust ventilation sends air out of the house, such as the bathroom or kitchen exhaust system. While these systems remove excess humidity, they can create negative pressure, pulling polluted air and moisture into the home through cracks in the exterior.

2. Supply ventilation systems bring fresh air inside the house but can bring in moisture and pollutants.

3. Balanced ventilation means the exhaust and supply streams are equal. This is the most desirable system, but balance can be hard to achieve.

4. Energy recovery systems convert the humidity from the air into energy. This can be a problem in cold climates, where the moisture can freeze.

5. Heat recovery ventilation uses heat in the exhausted stale air to heat up the home. In cold climates, frost can build up in the exchange core, necessitating the closing of a damper so that the warm air is routed through the core.

Attic Ventilation

Another key type of ventilation is in the attic. There are several types of vents — located in gables, rafters, and under eaves — but all help exhaust the warm, moist air that rises into the attic in winter. Turbine and ridge vents, plus attic ventilation fans, can help with this process.

The Right Ventilation for Your Home

A ventilation system could be the answer to improving your indoor air quality this winter. It's best to meet with an HVAC consultant and discuss what you hope to achieve. A consultant can make recommendations about the right type of system for your home to improve your indoor air quality.

Be sure to also discuss the need to avoid unpleasant drafts of cold air from the vent location.

For more on winter ventilation, contact Air Assurance of Broken Arrow.

Lingering Smoke Smell Solution

There's nothing worse than a house that smells like smoke. It doesn't just come from smoking, either. Maybe you burned something while cooking. Maybe you just lit a few candles. Whatever the reason, here are a few ways to get the smoke smell out of your home.

Immediate Solutions

Say the smoke smell came from something fairly recent. Maybe your kitchen isn't well ventilated, or you lit a fire in the fireplace while the flue was closed. Getting rid of the lingering smoke isn't too difficult. Open a window, turn on a fan in the area where the smoke is, and wait.

You could try to use your HVAC system to filter the smoke out, but it might not be as effective as you'd like. To remove smoke from the air, you'd need a high-efficiency air filter, which won't fit in a regular HVAC system without damaging it. There are, however, certain special air filters designed to fit your HVAC unit, which claim to be able to remove smoke. Or, you could invest in a dedicated air purifier for your home that uses high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters.

Long-Term Solutions

If the smoke smell has been building up in your home for years, such as from someone smoking, then you'll need to take more drastic measures. First, air out your home completely. Use your dedicated air purifier with HEPA filter, if you have it. Next, clean the carpets, drapes, and furniture. You can do it yourself, but if you want to be thorough, you're better off calling a professional.

Have your HVAC contractor examine your evaporator coil, as smoke can accumulate there. Finally, clean your ducts. This is another place where smoke residue can build up over time. As air flows through both the evaporator and your ductwork, it can then pick up that smoke residue and bring the smell right back into your home. Have them both thoroughly cleaned so your house can be smoke free.

For more tips on improving ventilation in your home, contact us at Air Assurance today. We provide the best home comfort solutions in Broken Arrow.

Ventilation Without Wasting Energy: Check Out An Energy Recovery Ventilator

Energy recovery ventilation units (ERVs) allow you to recapture energy produced by your HVAC system while ventilating your home. They bring in fresh, filtered air while expelling used, stale air. They also “recycle” energy by collecting humidity and warmth (or coolness) from outgoing air and essentially “giving” it to incoming air. This allows them to help maintain indoor temperatures and humidity levels. ERVs can recover around 70 percent to 80 percent of outgoing energy, making them some of the most efficient ventilation options on the market.Energy recovery ventilators differ from heat recovery ventilators in that they capture humidity along with the outgoing temperature. This occurs in the heat exchanger. Here the currents of incoming and outgoing air cross, and energy from the outgoing stream is collected. The two currents don’t combine.Most ERVs are complex ventilation systems, but there are smaller models that attach to pre-existing ducts, or even wall-mounted or window-mounted models. ERVs typically require more maintenance than a standard system. The heat exchanger is also susceptible to frost in cold weather, which can damage the system, so keeping them serviced is important.According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the air inside 60 percent of US homes is hazardous due to the build-up of indoor pollutants such as off-gassing from carpets, fumes from household cleaners, dust, mold and other dangerous microbes. This is an unfortunate side effect of homes that are tightly sealed to maximize energy efficiency. Air cleaned by an ERV can dramatically improve the health of many people suffering from chronic respiratory conditions.ERVs are generally most efficient when used in climates with very hot summers or very cold winters, but they can be utilized year round in temperate climates like ours to help maintain humidity levels in drier weather and preserve energy created by the HVAC system. Energy recovery ventilation systems often cost more to install than regular units, but choosing a model that attaches to existing ducts can help with the financial costs, offering great savings that recoup costs over time.Give Air Assurance a call to learn if an energy recovery ventilation system is right for your home.Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information, click here. Air Assurance services Tulsa, Broken Arrow and the surrounding areas.  To get started, check out our website or see our current promotions.